The invention relates to a materials carrier in the manner of a support for rods and the like that is self-supporting between its long ends. The long ends are embodied by identical vertical closure walls aligned with one another in the longitudinal direction of the materials carrier; horizontally extending holders protrude from the outside of the closure walls, so that the materials carrier can be set down on spaced horizontal shelf-support arms fastened to vertical posts, and so that the materials can be picked up and transported by a shelf service apparatus.
Materials carriers of this type are used for instance in the subject of U.S. Pat. No. 4,778,325, which relates to a storage system for rod-shaped material held in self-supporting carriers for rods and the like, with stacking frames disposed transversely to the direction of the storeroom and aligned with one another in the direction of the storeroom; the stacking frames in the manner of shelf systems are provided with adjacent rows of spaced support arms disposed one above the other, extending in the direction of the storeroom and secured to vertical supports, for the carriers. The storage system also has further shelves, embodied on support arms extending in the direction of the storeroom; rod-like material rests directly on these support arms. This storage apparatus is manipulated by a shelf service apparatus, described in detail in the aforementioned U.S. patent, by means of which both the rod-holding supports and the rod-like material resting loosely in the shelves can be moved to a destination and then either returned to storage, or stored at a new location provided for it. With a view to transporting of the rod-holding supports, the shelf service apparatus has a crane bridge that is movable in and extends crosswise to the storeroom direction and has raisable and lowerable load beams on both ends of the crane outside the shelf systems. Support means, extending crosswise to the storeroom direction and pointing with their free ends toward the stacking frames, are adjustable in the storeroom direction so as to be brought into load-bearing engagement, on both sides of the shelf system gangway, which thus forms the middle position, with the inside of the rod-holding supports, by means of holders protruding from the face ends of the support means.
However, for the rod-holding supports, the storeroom apparatus described above enables storage only of one type of material, in relatively large quantities of each material, so that if a great variety of material is to be kept on hand, the storage apparatus occupies considerable space and is suitable only for situations in which large quantities of material are needed.
Considering not only this problem, but also the shelves in which the material loosely rests, the vertical spacing between shelves disposed one above the other must inevitably be set for the maximum cross section of material to be stored, so that with material of smaller cross section, the shelves can accordingly not be filled full, so that some of the potential storeroom capacity is wasted.
Moreover, with storage systems of the type in question a certain amount of reserve capacity is typically provided for, even though some other location in the factory or the like may suffer a lack of storage capacity for products, such as metal sheets, small iron goods or the like, that are not rod-shaped.